After more training, I think everything will come

"After
more training, I think everything will come"
Sabrina Yohannes for IAAF

17 November 2000 - When it comes to the half-marathon,
world silver medallist Phaustin Baha Sulle of Tanzania has two goals: the world title and
the world best mark. But both are currently held by the newly-confirmed king of the event,
Kenyas Paul Tergat, who became the only man to successfully defend his World Half
Marathon Championship crown when he won in Veracruz on Sunday. "We cant beat
Paul Tergat," said Baha Sulle, 18, after working, along with his team-mate Amnaay
Zebedayo Bayo, to challenge the Kenyan there. "Maybe after two years," he added.

Baha Sulle has good reason to believe two years will give
him enough time to realise his dreams. In the past one year, his career has soared, and he
has consistently improved his position behind Tergat, going from 15th place at
the 1999 championships where the Kenyan took his first title, to a finish just one second
behind the champion last Sunday. The Tanzanian launched his campaign internationally in
March with a gutsy performance at the Lisbon half-marathon, one week after finishing
eighth in the junior race of the World Cross Country championships. The Lisbon race
featured an attack by Tergat on his own world mark of 59 minutes and 17 seconds, and
although the slightly downhill course prevented the time from gaining universal acceptance
as a new standard, he did slash it by 11 seconds. Baha Sulle, meanwhile, placed fourth in
59:38, a new (also informal) best time for himself and his country.

"Ive been training very hard in Tanzania,"
said Baha Sulle, who logged six other international half-marathons under 1:02:50 this
year, three of which he won. He honed his preparations for the World Championships with a
victory at the October Great North Run in the U.K., the same race that gave Briton Paula
Radcliffe the confidence to successfully target the womens world title. Going into
the championships, Baha Sulle also believed he had a chance.

"I thought, maybe," he said, but he changed his
mind somewhere along the course. "Tergat is very, very tough, not like me," he
said. Given the hot, humid conditions and the competition, Baha Sulle was pleased with his
1:03:48 second place, but was disappointed that, with his medal, and Bayo placing seventh,
his country didnt collect a team medal.

"Only two people came from Tanzania," he said.
"I think Tanzania was number two from the teams, but we didnt have one more
person." Both men train in Arusha, Tanzania, where Baha Sulle (who is also known as
Faustin Baha) lives with his wife and infant son, not far from the Babati district where
his parents, who are farmers, live. His running career took off with a road race, in which
he was fourth over 15K in Dar-Es-Salaam in 1997. But, like the cross-country and
10,000-metre repeat world medallist Tergat, Baha Sulle has designs on other events, as
well.

"I like everything: cross-country, road, track,"
he said, citing the ambitious targets he intends to chase while working on his long-term
half-marathon goals. "I plan to beat the Tanzanian record for the marathon, or the
10,000 or 5,000," said Baha Sulle, who has less experience in those events, but hopes
to remedy that soon. "I want to run a marathon next year," he said. "I will
speak to my manager. I dont know where I will go, maybe London."

With Tergat having since declared his commitment to run
London in April, if both men compete there, the race may prove to be another occasion
where the young Tanzanian propels his career forward in pursuit of the Kenyan. Encounters
between the two East Africans have already moved Baha Sulle closer to both of his
half-marathon goals. The Veracruz championships left him one medal away from the title,
and the Lisbon race that gave the 31-year-old Tergat the informal new world best, also
gave Baha Sulle the same distinction among juniors.